Everything you may have already imagined about the voluminous work ethic of UBC Thunderbirds’ starting middle linebacker Ben Hladik is true.And in case you had any doubt, there’s nothing like a first-hand account from an otherwise non-descript day in the dead of winter, when no one was supposed to be watching, to stoke the fires […]
Tag: bc high school football
The All-Time Dream Teams of B.C. High School Football: BCSSFA wants your help in selecting our best teams, by the decade, since the 1930s!
The longest championship streak in provincial high school sports history was snapped this past fall at 86 straight years.Ever since King Edward won the first B.C. high school football title in 1934, a gridiron champ has been crowned in our province.Thankfully, those behind the scenes at the B.C. Secondary Schools Football Association are trying to […]
Notre Dame’s new Juggler Field all-turf field complex set for April completion: With 700-plus seats, on-campus football looks hopefully to a fall reality!
Amidst what has been a nightmare of a high school sports season in B.C., a football Field of Dreams with the figurative spirit to go the distance, looks to have finally come to fruition at its East Vancouver campus.Notre Dame Regional Secondary, home to a Jugglers’ senior varsity football program which is the most decorated […]
VL podast 01.27.21: UBC head football coach Blake Nill on celebrating the tradition of Blue & Gold and the promise of a 2021 fall kick-off!
The UBC football nation, just like all of the other tight-knit, tradition-laden programs across Canada, mourned the loss of 2020 university football season. Thunderbirds’ head coach Blake Nill, however, is excited and hopeful for the prospects of a 2021 campaign… that much is obvious as the three-time Vanier Cup national championship-winning coach joins host Howard […]
Vancouver College’s Jackson Findlay never rests: BCSSFA honours the big-picture focus of Fighting Irish senior!
VANCOUVER — You’d be hard pressed to find a B.C. high school student-athlete who started the current academic year in September more prepared to stretch the limits of a standard 24-hour day than Jackson Findlay.And even though the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have curtailed so many of the goals he had set for […]
The singular focus of Ben Kolb: VC Fighting Irish’s UBC-bound kicker wears his ‘thinking cap’ inside his helmet as BCHSF’s 2020 Academic Player of Year!
VANCOUVER — Whether he’s wearing a football helmet or just his plain, old thinking cap, Ben Kolb is a study in focus.“I do think there are a lot of similarities between challenging classes and the pressure you experience on the football field,” the senior kicker/punter with the Vancouver College Fighting Irish explained Thursday over the […]
“He has the golden intangibles…” No one in BC high school football plays bigger than GW Graham’s 5-7 lineman & Chin Memorial winner Vince Ibardolaza!
ABBOTSFORD — Don’t try to tell Vince Ibardolaza what he’d can’t do on the football field.Instead, take a seat and watch what the undersized 5-foot-7, 210-pound offensive lineman with Chilliwack’s G.W. Graham Grizzlies can do.“He is really stoic and as even-keeled as they come, but a lot of that is his quiet confidence” Grizzlies head […]
VL Podcast 12.03.20: TSN’s Farhan Lalji on Subway Bowl, the Seahawks, Claypool and a coaching life well-mentored!
This week, the Varsity Letters welcomes an enduring friend of the podcast! TSN’s Farhan Lalji, a 31-year high school football coach in the province of B.C. stops by to chat with host Howard Tsumura about a whole host of topics. This coming Saturday at B.C. Place Stadium would have been the 2020 Subway Bowl […]
Who’s the kid on the corner? Hard luck shrouds Notre Dame Jugglers’ senior DB Antonio Cusati in anonymity, yet he is one to watch
BURNABY — Antonio Cusati is the cornerback who has been there and back.And if you’re wondering right about now just why his football journey is best described without longitudes, latitudes and the usual wash of statistics that best define a high school career, it’s because hard luck has made the Notre Dame Jugglers’ senior a […]
Chase Claypool: How four games from his standout 2015 senior season at Abby Senior left the clues which have now become conclusive with Steelers Nation!
ABBOTSFORD — Watching the breakthrough game of Chase Claypool’s young NFL career this past Sunday proved to be a prideful moment for John Barsby head football coach Rob Stevenson, despite the fact that back in 2015, his Bulldogs found themselves on the wrong end of a season-ending playoff loss fuelled by a performance many agree […]